Watch the most popular sessions from the 2009 conference! You'll learn optimization techniques for payroll, tax, and time management processes, get instruction to secure sensitive HR data and meet new reporting and audit requirements, hear how other companies leverage SAP solutions to improve HR efficiency, and much more! Designed for HR,payroll, and management teams.

This course provides 12+ hours of updated strategies, best practices, and comprehensive education for employee and manger self-service with SAP. This course is for HR professionals who are involved with employee and manager self-service. Whether you’re evaluating, implementing, or running SAP solutions for employee self-service (ESS) and manager self-service (MSS), we guarantee that you will generate immediate ROI from the cost-saving and time-saving methodologies in this course! It's guaranteed to help you make the smartest self-service decisions and maximize your ROI.

Straight answers on the future of your business intelligence investment

Hear directly from SAP about the role SAP BusinessObjects will play in your current – and future – SAP investment and business intelligence (BI) strategy. Get answers to your most pressing questions, such as:

How has the SAP BI strategy evolved and how will that affect my future decisions?

Where do SAP ERP and SAP NetWeaver Business Warehouse (SAP NetWeaver BW) tools fit into this strategy?

Which solutions and tools are phasing out, and what will replace them?

Can I still leverage my BEx queries and existing BI content in SAP NetWeaver BW and SAP ERP?

Will BEx Query Designer continue to play a fundamental role in the SAP BI strategy?

How will Crystal Reports and Xcelsius dashboards be embedded as delivered content in SAP Business Suite?

Do I have to start using all these tools today?

Which versions of SAP BusinessObjects XI or SAP NetWeaver BW do I need?

What is in store for the next release of SAP BusinessObjects, what new features and functionality will be released in the coming months?

Map the right tool to the right job: Strategies, updates, selection criteria

Dive into the extensive capabilities of the BI solutions available in SAP ERP, SAP NetWeaver BW, and SAP BusinessObjects, and explore which tools map best to your organization’s specific business requirements.

Step through the key functionality of tools in the SAP BusinessObjects business intelligence (BI) solutions suite, including Crystal Reports, Xcelsius, and SAP BusinessObjects Web Intelligence, and determine where, why, and how each can add value to your organization

Identify key considerations to determine which tools are best suited for your requirements, including:

Which reporting tools are best for executive-level reports, financial reports, and business user reports

Different approaches for delivering reports via the business intelligence portal (formerly called InfoView), SAP ERP, and OpenDoc calls

Step through some real-world scenarios to better understand how other organizations have selected the right tools for their jobs

Proving ROI: How to demonstrate the value of your SAP BusinessObjects implementation and integration effort

Perhaps one of the greatest challenges of any initiative is demonstrating a clear business benefit to key players in your organization. This session provides metrics and strategies to illustrate the value your SAP BusinessObjects integration effort to key stakeholders:

Anticipate the most pressing concerns of decision makers, and learn how to directly map the benefits gleaned from the BI tools to those issues

Understand how to measure the direct value each tool can have on your existing reporting and BI processes

Hear how other organizations have demonstrated the value of their SAP BusinessObjects implementation and integration to decision makers

This session steps through the complex architecture of an integrated BI environment. Understand the details of how SAP BusinessObjects solutions fit into an SAP ERP or SAP NetWeaver BW landscape, and what technical resources are needed for a successful integration initiative.

Step through an architectural “map” of the SAP BI landscape, and see how the reporting and analytics tools available within SAP ERP, SAP NetWeaver BW, and SAP BusinessObjects tie together

Explore distinct integration points, and understand how these points will differ depending on the make-up of your SAP landscape

Get tips on which drivers, transports, and data sources are needed for a successful integration

Learn which transports are best leveraged with SAP ERP and which are best for SAP NetWeaver BW

Integrating SAP BusinessObjects solutions with your existing BI landscape can be fraught with pitfalls and “gotchas.” This session offers key considerations to help you avoid the roadblocks that stand in front of optimal integration between SAP BusinessObjects and SAP NetWeaver BW and SAP ERP systems.

Learn which patch and release levels are needed before starting the integration process

Know which key resources you must have aligned in the pre-integration phase

Understand the order of operations for a successful SAP BusinessObjects integration project, from end-user training to the installation of essential transports and drivers

Hear an overview of which of your current BI investments can still be leveraged in an integrated SAP BusinessObjects environment, and which cannot, including queries, reports, table authorizations, hierarchies, and roles

Get testing, troubleshooting, and maintenance best practices for your post-integration landscape

Each SAP BusinessObjects solution comes with its own integration opportunities and challenges. This session will make you aware of the specific nuances of tying SAP BusinessObjects Web Intelligence, Crystal Reports, and Xcelsius to your SAP ERP and SAP NetWeaver BW systems.

Discuss which questions to ask when integrating each of these specific SAP BusinessObjects BI tools into your existing landscape, such as:

What are my data sources?

Which tools am I already leveraging?

What resources do I have available?

What is my project scope?

Who are my BI consumers?

What is my reporting delivery strategy?

Dive into recommended practices for integrating Crystal Reports

Find out which metadata layer will offer the best performance when using Crystal Reports to report off of SAP NetWeaver BW

Understand the differences between OLAP universes and relational universes, and how SAP BusinessObjects Web Intelligence leverages OLAP universes as a fundamental building block for reporting off of SAP NetWeaver BW

Gain insight into the differences between pointing to an SAP NetWeaver BW query vs. an InfoCube

Learn when, why, and how to tweak your existing SAP NetWeaver BW queries for optimal report performance (and when you may need to build new queries)

Delve into the differences between the available connectivity options for delivering quality Xcelsius dashboards, including LiveOffice, QaaWS, and BI Consumer Services (BICS)

Strategies that yield a high-performing, scalable SAP BI environment

You can have the best tools with the greatest features and functions, but if they don’t scale and perform, they’ll be useless to your business. This unique session pulls together key best practices and concepts in the areas of sizing, virtualization, and scalability from those who are building these platforms every day. Arm your teams with insight, tips, and tricks to create and size an SAP BI platform that can support the ever changing needs of your business.

Understand the difference between vertical and horizontal scalability

Walk through a system sizing exercise and identify key questions to determine your specific sizing requirements, such as:

You already have a security strategy to protect your critical data and reports. In this session find out the key security issues and challenges that come with these new tools, and learn how to leverage your existing security policies and strategies. Examine the native security features of SAP BusinessObjects, explore how these features differ from those of more traditional BI tools from SAP, and dive into the specific roles and characteristics that can be leveraged in your newly-integrated environment.

Bolster your knowledge of the native security features in SAP BusinessObjects and how they can best compliment traditional SAP security

Get expert advice on security design and workflow processes developed from real-world scenarios

Explore the core security feature and terminology differences between the SAP BusinessObjects BI tools and the more traditional BI tools in SAP NetWeaver BW and SAP ERP, including:

Discover ways to employ the monitoring and auditing of accounts and user activity in SAP BusinessObjects

Data sources made simple: A comprehensive guide to understanding, customizing, and leveraging hierarchies in SAP BusinessObjects

Learn how hierarchies serve as the basis for reporting and analysis within your SAP environment, and explore how SAP BusinessObjects employs hierarchies differently than SAP BEx or other traditional SAP business intelligence tools. This detailed session simplifies the concept of hierarchies and offers easy to understand guidelines for using
them at your company.

Investigate the importance of hierarchies, and learn why they are a crucial component within your SAP environment

Find out how each of the SAP BusinessObjects BI tools handles hierarchies and how that differs from handling hierarchies within SAP BEx

Explore how hierarchy and hierarchy node variables behave in the various SAP BusinessObjects BI tools

This session delivers proven practices to help you anticipate and manage performance issues and bottlenecks related to using SAP BusinessObjects solutions in your landscape. Understand what workloads and tasks can drag down your system, get advice for bolstering query performance, and learn how to deal and troubleshoot slow response times.

Learn how to open Xcelsius within Crystal Reports, and the ways this affects overall system performance

Gain insight into the common bottlenecks that negatively affect system performance, and hear how SAP tracing can be leveraged to monitor and identify performance issues

The SAP business intelligence roadmap: What’s in, what’s out, and what it means to you

Understand the next generation of SAP’s reporting and business intelligence solutions, and learn how these future BI offerings will work within your SAP NetWeaver BW, SAP Business Suite, and SAP BusinessObjects environments.

Review SAP’s current BI strategy and the role SAP BusinessObjects BI solutions play in that strategy

Hear directly from SAP on many of the enhancements planned for the core SAP BusinessObjects BI platform (SAP BusinessObjects XI 4.0)

Learn about many new user enhancements that make the SAP BusinessObjects BI tools much easier to use

Get a glimpse into the new semantic layer and see how it will provide a more robust environment for managing disparate data

Explore future enhancements to reduce the administrative task of running the SAP BusinessObjects and SAP NetWeaver platforms in parallel

Learn the product details for Pioneer, the much anticipated next generation analysis tool that will be replacing BEx Analyzer and SAP BusinessObjects Voyager, and how it will be an integral part of the future SAP BusinessObjects portfolio

Get the information you need to decide if you should implement, upgrade, or integrate your BI solutions now or wait until the next release

Whether you’re evaluating, starting a new project, or are in the process of bringing more solutions into your landscape, you will learn valuable and practical advice to manage and validate your current project plan and ensure you aren’t missing any critical items. This session offers insight into key decision points as you plan your next steps.

Get tips and best practices for creating a clear project plan before implementation, including the specification of timelines and how you will phase out your deployments

Glean the benefits of taking an iterative approach to BI implementation

Understand the importance of a Business Intelligence Competency Center

Weigh the pros and cons of a top-down vs. bottom-up approach to BI implementation

Identify the key milestones of the project and who within your organization needs to be involved at each phase

Find out how to get key stakeholders’ and managements’ buy-in

Map user requirements to available tooling, and be confident that you are selecting the correct tools for various groups of users

Learn how to determine the sequence of installation, upgrade, or integration steps, taking into account the dependencies between BI solutions

Get lessons and insights to avoid the most common challenges companies face when integrating their BI landscape

Get advice on how to strategically phase out unsupported, or unneeded, solutions

A comprehensive introduction to SAP BusinessObjects Explorer

This session examines SAP BusinessObjects Explorer, accelerated. Learn how it differs from the standard version of SAP BusinessObjects Explorer, and the benefits it can provide managers, business teams, and casual users with immediate insights into vast amounts of data.

Get an overview of the features in SAP BusinessObjects Explorer, accelerated, and learn how it allows users to slice and dice massive volumes of data in seconds, without the need for formal report development or IT intervention. Discover: